CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—Quinn Cook found the perfect way to describe the bizarre shot Seth Curry knocked down while almost sitting on the floor in the first half of Duke’s 69-53 win against rival North Carolina on Saturday night.

“That’s a Curry shot,” he said with a wry smile.

He should know. Cook has seen plenty of “Curry shots” in his time at Duke, both in person and while watching Curry’s older brother, Stephen, light up scoreboards in the NBA. Cook and Seth Curry were watching together when big brother dropped 54 mesmerizing points against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden on Feb. 27, in a game his Golden State team lost by four.

For a while Saturday night, Seth was pulling off a pretty good sibling imitation. The Duke senior made his first seven shots, from all over the court—drives into the lane, a 3-pointer, a bank shot from near the baseline and a couple of jumpers. On the “Curry shot,” he beat Carolina junior Reggie Bullock with a quick first step and drove down the right side of the lane. As he hesitated to let Bullock fly by, he stumbled back and his backside was just inches from the ground when he put up the shot attempt.

“I actually knew that was going in the whole time,” he said. “I just slipped a little bit.”

“Not quite,” Seth said. “That’s 54. I mean, I felt good coming out in this game. I don’t know how many shots I made in a row, but I felt good. It was similar, just the way we were making all kinds of crazy shots. But I didn’t do it for as long as he did.”

By the time Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski gave Curry a rest, the Blue Devils were up 28-11 and the crowd at the Dean Smith Center was stunned.

“He toyed with us,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said.

Curry did eventually miss a couple shots, of course. He was 8-for-10 from the field in the first half and finished the game with 20 points, the 16th time this season he’s scored at least that many.

“I got good shots and got in a rhythm,” said Curry, who is averaging 17.1 points per game on the season. “I felt like as long as I got my shot off, it was going to go in. ... It’s good to start the game and set a tone for my team.”

Curry set the tone Saturday, and big man Mason Plumlee delivered the closing refrain. The Duke senior had 15 of his 23 points in the second half, taking advantage of the opportunities the North Carolina defense offered.

Plumlee has struggled this year in matchups against physical centers and physical teams, but the Tar Heels couldn’t do much of anything with him Saturday. Part of that was the matchup with James Michael McAdoo, who is more of a lean, athletic power forward, and part of it is having Ryan Kelly back from his foot injury.

“I think each game, the last three games, we’ve gotten a little better with our lineup, with having Ryan back,” Plumlee said. “I think it depends on what the team decides to key on. If it’s Ryan, I’ll have more one-on-ones. If they key in on Seth, I’ll have more pick-and-rolls and stuff like that.

“It’s really just how they defend us.”

In the second half, Plumlee was the assertive offensive force the Blue Devils need to see on a nightly basis. This type of performance—he finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds—can help the Blue Devils to the Final Four. And this performance also shows how important Kelly is to Duke; when Plumlee sees physical double-teams, his offensive impact is limited. Kelly’s presence discourages such tactics.

“We have a great dynamic between me, Ryan and Seth,” Plumlee said. “You have two guys spacing the floor, and then you have to kind of pick and choose who and what you’re going to take away. Seth really kept us in front and then in the second half, I had some one-on-ones.”

With that dynamic working—even though Kelly spent most of the first half in foul trouble and finished with just eight points—the Blue Devils are hard to stop. This Carolina team was riding a six-game winning streak heading into the game, but Duke held a double-digit lead for 36:53 of the 40 minutes Saturday night.